Grotius’s work was printed in 1640, with this title:  Commentatio ad loca quaedam Novi Testamenti, quae de Antichristo agunt aut agere putantur, expendenda, eruditis.

It contains an explanation of the second chapter of the second epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, in which he undertakes to prove, that the Man of Sin, there mentioned, is the Emperor Caius Caligula, who wanted to place his statue in the temple of Jerusalem, as may be seen in Philo; and was desirous to be thought a God, as Philo and Josephus relate.  He afterwards explains the eighteenth verse of the second chapter of the first epistle of St. John. You know that Antichrist is come, and that there are many Antichrists. He thinks the Antichrist already come was Barchochebas, and that the other Antichrists are Simon the Magician and Dosithaeus.

The beast, in the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation, is, according to him, Rome pagan; the power, which is given to it for forty-two months, signifies Domitian’s persecution, which lasted three years and a half.  The beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit, mentioned chap. xi. ver. 7. is magic, and Apollonius Thyanaeus:  in fine, he finds the famous number 666, mentioned in the last verse of the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, in Trajan’s name, who was called Ulpius, of which the numeral letters form the number 666.

The Reformed were strangely scandalized at this work.  Samuel Desmarets answered it with great bitterness, which drew another piece from Grotius in defence of the former, with this title:  Appendix ad interpretationem locorum Novi Testamenti, quae de Antichristo agunt, aut agere putantur, in qua via sternitur ad Christianorum concordiam.  Desmarets is never mentioned in it but under the name of Borboritus.  It has been observed, that Grotius was guilty of a slight inaccuracy in this treatise:  he says the Emperor Barbarossa’s enemies ascribed to him the pretended book De tribus Impostoribus:  he confounds the grandson with the grandfather, for it was Frederic II. against whom this calumny was advanced, as appears from the letters of Peter Desvignes, his Secretary and Chancellor, and as Grotius himself remarks in his observations on Campanella’s philosophy.

He printed at the same time his treatise Of Faith and Works against Desmarets, and against the error of the inadmissibility of grace, under the title of Explicatio trium illustrissimorum locorum Novi Testamenti, Capitis I. Pauli ad Ephesios posterioris, Capitis II.  Jacobi Commatis XIV. & sequentium, Capitis III.  Epistolae I. Johannis, in quibus agitur de fide & operibus.  This work shews, that faith is not sufficient for Justification; and that if those who have faith live in sin, they are hated by God.